Welcome to ReefCentral.
Because of the sheer size of our forum, we've been forced to limit selling and trading to members who've met a couple of criteria. (If you're seeing this message, you haven't met them yet.) Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with our selling/trading rules to help make your stay a long and rewarding one.
Selling and trading on ReefCentral.

Green hair algae seems to be out competing the dinoflagellates in my gfs tank. I saw a huge reduction yesterday. Hair algae is all along the sandbed and is starting to grow on rocks. If this works, I will grab the hair algae and grow it in my tank.

When you have dinoflagellates, I know you aren't supposed to do water changes, but does adding calcium supplements defeat the purpose? Or is it okay to add calcium supplements. The two little fishies two part calcium to be exact.

DNA made very interesting posts a few days ago on the reason why water changes make dinos bloom.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNA

.
The square is still there.

Last year I did jet another of my brilliant tests.
I siphoned off the top layer of sand into a bucket and let it dry out killing loads of dinos.
Some months later I dumped all the sand back into the tank, knowing there were lots of toxins going in with it.
A Royal Gramma and a pair of Mandarins died in the days that followed.
Much of the dino population disappeared as well.

The square test and the dead dino tests are virtually the same.
I'm theorizing that Ostreopsis dinoflagellates can't tolerate their own toxins.
This is the limiting factor on dino densities I've been looking for since day one.
In the ocean dino blooms get much denser than in reef tanks because the vast ocean carries and dilutes the toxins from the dead dinos.

Did we just reach another milestone?

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNA

Not convinced yet?

Many of us have seen their dinos bloom right after water changes.
The toxins got dilluted.

The dirty method: Turn off the skimmer and filters and let the toxins build up.
The clean method: Kill the dinos with UV and let the toxins build up.

https://utahbiodieselsupply.com/bagfilters.php has every kind of sock
You will need a pump or powerhead to drive water through the sock. In my tank anything below 100 clogs up hopelessly within an hour or two. I believe Ostreopsis is the smallest dino at 40 microns? Some of them are huge.

Good news re hair algae, although I doubt your gf was impressed with your gift of dinos.

Adding Ca/Mg/Alk probably does help the dinos. But I lost a frogspawn due to alk swings (dinos cause wild alk drop, has anyone else experienced this?) so I'm hesitant to stop. High pH is supposed to be bad for dinos..

Haven't updated because tank's going all to heck. Hoping friend will drop off microscope this weekend.

https://utahbiodieselsupply.com/bagfilters.php has every kind of sock
You will need a pump or powerhead to drive water through the sock. In my tank anything below 100 clogs up hopelessly within an hour or two. I believe Ostreopsis is the smallest dino at 40 microns? Some of them are huge.

Good news re hair algae, although I doubt your gf was impressed with your gift of dinos.

Adding Ca/Mg/Alk probably does help the dinos. But I lost a frogspawn due to alk swings (dinos cause wild alk drop, has anyone else experienced this?) so I'm hesitant to stop. High pH is supposed to be bad for dinos..

Haven't updated because tank's going all to heck. Hoping friend will drop off microscope this weekend.

- Will be running lights on for 5 hours a day
- Will be dosing hydrogen peroxide for 5 - 7 days at night (3 ml for biocube 29)
- Will only be running filter floss

Here are my questions:
1. Should I do lights out for 3 days when I dose hydrogen peroxide? I did 3 days lights out about a week ago, but the dinos came back.
2. Do I have to take account for the rock work and really only dose like 2ml of hydrogen peroxide?
3. How long should I dose for (how many days)?
4. When should I do water change to get rid of hydrogen peroxide? Or does it become like pure water after a few days and lose its effectiveness?